The Sonata for solo violin was the last work Bartok finished. Menuhin, who had commissioned it, was unhappy with the quarter-tone and third-tone passages in the finale and Bartok sanctioned his proposed alterations, with the proviso that he wanted to hear both versions before making a final decision. Sadly he died before this could be arranged, and Menuhin's published edition does not represent the original notation. According to the insert-note this is the first time the original version has been recorded.
It has to be said that the relevant passages add up to barely one-quarter of one movement and the difference in effect is hardly earth-shattering—it is generally a case of chromatic sequential progressions and oscillations being compressed into a slightly narrower overall space. Moreover the performance is not in the same class as current rival versions on disc. I would recommend the 1947 Menuhin on EMI, with the Bartok Second Concerto, for authority and idiomatic grasp, and Mullova on Philips for total command and modern recording quality, both in preference to the more spacious Kennedy (on EMI, coupled with an arrangement of Duke Ellington's Mainly black).
It is good to have the two Rhapsodies available. But it cannot be denied that Maryvonne Le Dizes-Richard finds them hard going in places, and the dehydrated recording quality does neither player any favours. Pierre-Laurent Aimard is relegated to the middle distance and given what sounds like a sub-standard instrument. The attractive Romanian folk-dances are not without their poetic moments, although some of the characterization is, to say the least, debatable—No. 1 comes out sounding capricious, rather than proud, for instance. Generally this can be recommended only to those who feel they simply must hear the quarter-tone version of the Sonata.'